Saying farewell to the PlayStation 2 (2000-2012)

VB - Well, my friends, it’s official. Sony has confirmed that production of our beloved PlayStation 2 has finally ended. After 12 years and over 10,000 games, no new PS2s will ever be made again. While many gamers may have hung up their DualShock 2 controllers a long time ago, this announcement adds a sad finality to what we all knew was inevitable.

While I will agree with you that the SNES is probably the best console ever, the PS2 not only delivered games that were, in many cases, on par or better than the SNES, it also is still the highest selling console of all time and it doesn't look like that is ever going to change. 10,000 games and over 150 million consoles sold worldwide is enough to earn it the title of King of Consoles without taking anything away from the SNES which was part of the Golden Age of gaming.

Oh great, I'm old and out of touch now, aren't I? I still vividly remember their PS2 E3 conference. That was the first system I bought with my own money. I remember being lucky enough to get a preorder from toysrus.com. And the day it came... Whoa, nostalgia.

I was more upset about the Dreamcast ending! Only reason PS2 overshadowed Dreamcast was because of that dvd player and advertising. When it came to the actual quality of games, Dreamcast had the clear advantage.

People have forgotten that it should really be about the games and not all the extra crap weve been distracted by. Do we really need a controller with a screen, Kinect, Netflix or a Bluray player on our console? I want quality games only!!!

um; call me crazy but didn't the dreamcast have a "controller with a screen"? ...although the dreamcast was ahead of the game (at the time) of all the games it did have in it's short life span it was only a "handful" that can be deemed as quality games...it did have quite a few duds...

once the xbox and ps2 rolled around and showed that their early games were just as good (if not, maybe better) and offered MORE bang for the buck, sega knew it was time to throw in the towel.

PS2s early games looked quite inferior to the Dreamcasts! Graphics took a long time to catch up to the Dreamcasts visuals. Quality games were what they were about. I thought the PS2 and Xbox were very overrated. Most people didnt even know Dreamcast was out!

They didnt market it right. Its ashame too, because if the Dreamcast kept going the way it was, it wouldve blown away the Xbox and PS2 all together. The controller didnt have a screen, it was actually the little VMU card. It was quite a bit different than playing on an ipad for a controller.

I still love DC. It has one of my all time favourite jrpg Skies of Arcadia. I also have Shenmue even though I never played it more than 2 hours. I think getting accustomed to Yakuza might make me absolutely love Shenmue. I should hook my DC up one of these days and try Shenmue and finish Skies of Arcadia again. It's been years...

@MadMax... Dude you're just as delusional as a drunk mel gibson...the only reason to think the ps2 and xbox were overrated is because you probably couldn't afford one... You must have been sleeping under a rock to think they didn't market it right because i remember quite well they advertised the hell out of it during the mtv video music awards on 9/9/99... Practically every commercial break had a dreamcast commercial...not to mention it was plastered in all the gaming and tech magazines...

And the vmu was actually a removable screen for the controller that served as a memory card and handheld gaming unit...hence why i put it in quotes because they did incorporate using it while playing certain games ala' the wiiU....

And if the dreamcast did keep going the way it was then it would have completely bankrupt sega instead of keeping them afloat as a software company...no thanks to how easy it was to pirate games for it. (i should know) ;p

So many memories! Playing MOH:F (a classic to me), The Simpsons Hit and Run (because I wasn't allowed GRAND THEFT AUTO at the time), SILENT HILL 2 (wow, just wow..) and the GTA trilogy. Those games don't even scratch the surface of the PS2's vast array of classic games - a library unparalleled even on today's consoles.

How is that even a fair comparison? Grand Theft Auto wasn't even out when the SNES came out, nor was it capable of using a CD... I do agree, that the PS2 is King of Consoles, but that was just a poor comparison.

I can see why people would be fond of the PS2. The first DVD player for some people. Its huge breadth of games. The first place that you could play GTA: San Andreas on. Its artsier games like Ico. It even got some of the Cube's best hand me downs like Resident Evil 4 and Viewtiful Joe.

The decision to only have 2 controller ports, almost 5 years after consoles had 4 as standard, struck an odd note though, although it may be true that most games would be for single player or one one one games.

For me, it's its niche survival horror games that makes the PS2 noteworthy. Not all of them are fun or easy to play but they are certainly 'different'. This includes Gregory Horror Show.

Silent Hill 3 was also on PC but, until recent, supposedly inferior, collections, the PS2 was the only console with it and it feels like a great testament to how the PS2, with its complicated architecture, could, in the right situations, feel like the best choice of console for a game that has such subtle animations (the Gamecube's REmake was good for that too).

IMO, the PS2 wasn't mainly to blame for the Dreamcast's demise. If anything, the PS1 was, sowing the seeds for all those upgraders (Sony weren't going to not have a PS2 were they?). Sega had been out of favour in many parts of the world since about 1994, coincidentally when Donkey Kong Country, thanks to Rare, made Nintendo more cool. With Sega's add ons and the Saturn (which didn't even have a proper Sonic platforming game), Sega seemed content to be regarded as a company that made games for people who liked arcade games- or games that looked like they could be arcade games such as Jet Set Radio. Unfortunately arcade games were not on everyone's radar and Sega's wacky adverts were starting to look like a bit 90s so the deeper seeming adventures (Shenmue aside) and cool surrealism of the PS2's marketing took precedence over the Dreamcast even though there was plenty to like about the DC's distinctively bright and crisp visuals. I'm sure that the Dreamcast was seen as worthy by many but just too distant, like some tried but untested (faith in Sega not previously at a high) Japanese piece of wonderment (ironically, the DC didn't even do well in Japan, surely the most hurtful part of its story). Playing a Sega console at that time was like becoming a foreigner in your own country - it may have been very exotic seeming but it just made you too 'rarefied' to be popular. That's one way I see it and there are many others ways to see it. In a short time, the Dreamcast was an incredibly vital part of gaming history - its fruits are still seen today in some of the ideas adopted by the Wii or by the PS3. It turns out that people still wanted Sega's wackiness- they just wanted it blended with something else sometimes.

Well done PS2 and I hope to see a Jet Set Radio Future (2) episodic sequel on the PS3 or PS4.